Shit puppies. I just turned back on my Facebook. What the hell was I thinking? Now all that shit I write is going to show up in front of muh ex gurl and a bunch of web randoms who got added up when I was trying to rule the web last. Blocked her so she won’t be doing that shit where she’s seeing someone but wants me in her home twenty-four seven to see how long it takes before the good old days explode on us in a giant pile of drama.

Being an incredibly sexy poet is just so hard. Whine and dine with me.

That damn thing happened again. This uncontrollable entertainer slash wannabe author has exploded inside me again the moment I started the life hacking away from the catering, home repairs and yards — odds and ends bullshit — and back toward my old way of being a hardcore nine to fiver giving up every day off I could to squeeze every drop of green out of the whole deal. It’s a problem. In one mindset it is key at this job app’d up point to go do the face-time thing anywhere where it’s not just a “blah, whatever” type resume submission.

But instead I’m in the process of opening a Patreon centered on my writing and just finally bought a web-cam of merit to adhere to the “best practices” guidelines they provide. Probably a new YouTube channel before long too. The thinking here is that, as I have whined about before here into the blogs, there really isn’t any good reason for me to online-publish things like pieces of upcoming fictional works and poetry anthologies. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing this style of free-flowing Web content and this style of post would always show up on this blog.

However, when I look over my hard drive there is a lot of pieces on here that are better suited for a Patreon feed than just sheer live blogging potential future IPs so third-parties can just come in and give zero credit to the author while using a level of ads that is obviously excessive. People should get paid for their best work and art is work like any other. If I were to guess the objections some raise about this style of crowd-funding it’s that they don’t see writing, music, and art in general as something valid to pour money into unless it comes pre-packaged by the existing industry involved.

What I think many are unaware of in this matter is that in the “old days” a writer of merit would receive an investment in the form of a large lump sum directly from the publisher then given a deadline to produce. This investment was expressly for living expenses, research materials, leisure time, and anything else that might enhance the final product. No going back from the Digital Era, obviously, so e-publishing is just a beast all serious writers have to tackle to ground or be eaten alive when you try and call yourself that in public. But there are many projects going on here and no time at all to finish all of them unless I do that thing where the heady stuff and the final draft prose is paying for itself.

Enough about that. My neighborhood was popping off a second ago. Live music from up the hill and little kids singing some pop song I don’t recognize from over the fence. Out here in the backyard after running around town a bit. This is Santa Cruz, CA by the way or “Surf City USA” or as I want to be known as the birthplace of NHS and Santa Cruz (Brand) Skateboards & Clothing. No I don’t work for them it’s more that you might have seen those stickers around and those are referring to my little surf / skate town here.

Think I liked San Francisco more but the housing costs are just stupid high so that’s off the table unless I could network that shit. Oh what else? All this poetry explosion going on in my head is probably because I’m in love again, which is nice but complicated when these new feelings are for a long time close friend who is keeping at a distance most days. Always been a fool for love but thanks to serious bumps in the road in my youth I can speak very openly and directly about these topics if people are comfortable enough with me to do so. Often the things left unsaid in romance can be sexier than spilling your guts twenty-four seven but oh doggies do things get complicated sometimes and the need for honest communication shifts into the foreground so strongly that it’s almost slapping you in the face.

Okay, that was a “rant” they call them in this box of digital expression that is linked to other boxes that occasionally do this creating unique ideas stuff. Peace, love and chicken grease.

He says my voice is too low and sexy for him to listen for long without a cold shower. Maybe two.

Any time Dr. Love Song calls you must pick up the phone.

Ladies, you know who you are, no games now that school is in session.

Alright we have taken care of the two essential points to understand: first that I am too sexy so you can’t have it, stop asking, and second that women everywhere have to stop everything they are doing and listen to me like the words are gospel.

On to the business of the day:

Can it work for men and women to be just friends, and can a friendship survive an attempt at romance?

Oh Dr. Love Beats don’t play around so listen up while I crank that dial.

First we got sexy friends and how they don’t end up pants down with feet kicked up the second the doors closed behind them. It’s all about just what this person is to you and how you act around each other.

If you act like brother and sister, even if neither of you thinks of it like that, then no harm can come of it but keep in mind now that this means things like that person could come walking out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel, their birthday suit and a single lifestyle for both of you but you still are not on the hubba-hubba-hubba train.

Never really know something like that until you test it and it’s not recommended to test that one out wildly.

Good friends the answer is: yes. Just people you know barely well enough to call friends probably not, and if anyone is spending a lot of time away from their honey to be with someone they barely could call a “bestie” then it probably means they are in the process of checking out of the relationship but of course every situation has unique factors.

Then we have sexy, long-time friends trying to figure out if kicking the romance tree will drop poisonous snakes on our heads or maybe rain a bounty of delicious apples.

That is a very tricky one and where the romance is so easily sucked out of the room like a giant vacuum cleaner set to the no-sex-in-the-champagne-room setting just got turned on every time it comes up.

First you have to think yourself out and if the friendship gets permanently threatened in your head by something like cheating or dishonesty then this not a friend that is solid enough to consider this for.

Nobody said it was easy but adults actually manage to handle these big feelings in mature fashions, but that’s where the romance dies and rots in the corner of the room.

You can’t really take it forward with a friend without risking the friendship unless you can be sure they also share in a policy of time apart healing wounds, in so far as being civil with the next man or whatever the situation might be.

That means talking it out, which is great for couples to keep open lines of communications but is doing it ass backwards if you are trying to pitch some woo.

So the answers to today’s life questions are: yes if you’re good and close friends who know limits, and nobody ever won the love game without taking a gamble but at the same time dumb bets never break the bank.

—

Some parting words for the men of the audience before Dr. Love Cakes retires for the evening to my silk bedding and multiple wives.

Never met a woman yet that I had a worth talking about relationship with that didn’t try and push me away in one form or another. But if you already got that figured think on this one: don’t become that overly pushy guy or she’s going to push you right out the door one day.

When they say “space” or “time” or just ignore your fucking txts / calls then stop fucking bugging them for awhile even if that girl has you so in a twist right now.

You can man it up for a few days, don’t give me this shit about how you just had to do the million calls thing.

If she wants it and you want it and she knows it, all the stuff is as set as it gets without you there to fuel that fire like we love to do.

So go do something else for awhile before you make that poor woman break her phone against the wall.

I don’t feel like writing anything too serious today. I’ll just keep typing into this laptop to fill up the space in my head that creeps and crawls. I have plenty to say, too much in fact. But it’s not going on the Internet. Sorry but my ever so interesting life story is not something I’ll put on here. I know all about tearing my heart out and wearing it on my sleeve for complete strangers. I’m the master of TMI (“too much information”) and I ramble as bad in conversation as I do online. But the person I am changes too fast to even keep track of anymore these days. I will say this though: for someone so young I’ve lived a rather full and complex life. Even though I’ve barely lived at all I could die with a smile on my face today, I’ve made my mark and changed cold hearts with my compassion as well as hardened hearts with my malice. I can finally view existence as something that makes sense and remembered that believing in myself is the only thing that ever made sense to me.

Like this:

The concept of “Swiss-cheese morality” is coined by Dr. John Van Epp in his book “How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk” which he points out could be conversely titled “How to Avoid Marrying a Jerkette” for jerkdom knows no gender.

This matter get’s my goat, in that certain kind of way. Speaking from personal experience.

A person appears normal enough, polite and appealing, but with time you become aware that there are gaps between this person’s very moral fabric.

They might hold certain standards quite ardently but when it comes it other types of standards they simply lack any ability to recognize their callousness and lapse in values, or are in heavy stages of denial about it.

There are little early warning signs: the inability to admit personal faults or misbehavior, hiding friends and past relationships from you, not disclosing important things that you discover later in a less than pleasant manner.

We are looking for phrases like:

“Actually, I was kind of less than honest about that. It was actually more like…”

“I was wrong, that was a stupid move.”

“I got upset there, I can get a little hot under collar / frazzled sometimes.”

It’s not about seeking out people who just roll over and immediately take all the blame unto themselves. It is more about recognizing a person’s willingness or unwillingness to confront the reality of what they are putting out there. The ability to link their actions with consequences, not just sometimes but all of the time.

Anyone can make a mistake, but some people appear to have “Swiss-cheese morality” in terms of recognizing certain kinds of mistakes. It is as if they simply cannot imagine they have poor standards, so they simply declare to themselves that they do not. Therefore, they fail to learn from the mistakes that fall within the holes of their “Swiss-cheese morality.”